It seems as if security firm, Trusteer, has identified a new variant of the Gozi financial malware. This one is more sophisticated and requires your attention. This new variant infects the Master Boot Record (MBR) on your computer — which is a boot sector software device that resides at the beginning of your hard drive that tells your computer how to boot up.

Just like TDL4, another MBR infector, this malware is hard to detect and remove. The main idea behind Gozi, though, is to wait for Internet Explorer to be launched on the victim’s machine, and malicious code is injected into the Process. This allows the malware to intercept web traffic, and inject its own code to webpages, misleading the user and collecting financial information (as well as social security numbers, birth dates, etc.).

Some speculate other developers have taken over, since apparently the main developer as well as accomplices were arrested not long ago. Looks like the new developers have a more sophisticated twist on the whole situation.

What’s different? The MBR rootkit component. This component makes the malware more sophisticated, because the removal of such threat can cause the computer to fail booting. The main problem at trying to fix infections in the MBR is that occasionally, the backup code that is placed in a different sector, is modified to not work when the infection locks in. This makes you have to keep it on the machine. However, it’s more effective to use private tools to help remove it.

One of the private tools, well sort of private, is the Kaspersky Rescue Disc. There are others that are available also, including TDSSKiller, which may or may not work out correctly.

If you need further help, we would love to assist. Please comment at any time!